


Then You Took My Hand

by medelrey



Category: The Borgias (2011)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-19
Updated: 2016-04-20
Packaged: 2018-06-03 03:45:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6595261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/medelrey/pseuds/medelrey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story of Cesare's love for Lucrezia, from the very beginning to the very end. Sparked by the poem "Sadness" by Barbara Guest</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hi! this story has been in my drafts for well over a year now, and this is only half of it. i'm posting the beginning to see if there's enough interest to see if it deserves finishing. will be explicit by the end of it. let me know in the comments if i should finish it up! xx

Then you took my hand. You told me that love

was a sudden disturbance of the nerve ends

that startled the fibres and made them new again.

You quoted a song about a man running

by the sea who drew into his lungs the air

that had several times been around the world.

A speck of coal dust floated down and settled on my lapel.

Quickly with your free hand you rubbed out the spot.

Yet do you know I shall carry always that blemish on my breast?

***

“What is love, Cesare?” His little sister asks, her girlish innocence practically radiating off her skin. She was so pure; so angelic. So his to mold and his to hold. “Is it what I feel for you?”

Cesare swallows before he answers. “That is a type of love, yes.” The girl with the most beautiful smile lets it stretch across her face.

“There are different kind of loves, then?” Lucrezia asks, grasping her brother’s hand and entwining their fingers.

“Yes, there are many types of love.” He tweaks her nose as she giggles. 

“Tell me about them, brother. I’m going to fall in love one day, you know.” Cesare’s smile doesn’t match his eyes.

“You read too many romances, little sister. Do not worry your pretty head about love.”

“But Cesare, Papa’s surely to marry me to someone soon. A Lord, a Duke, maybe even a Prince! How will I know what love is?” Cesare groans and pushes her back on the grass of their expansive courtyard, his black cloak half off his shoulders, her pristine white gown probably staining in the grass.

His sister is giggling before he even begins to tickle her, making him smile wider. “I thought you decided you’d become a nun. You would run off with me.”

Cesare’s hands tickle her feet and she’s too slow to crawl away from him. “Now that Papa’s Pope, I don’t think that could happen. You’re bound for the College of Cardinals, not a monastery. And I would never see you.”

“Hm,” Cesare kisses Lucrezia’s knuckles, grinning down at her before he sighs. “You are too smart for you own good.”

“Still not smart enough to know what love is.” Lucrezia pouts, sitting up and placing her arms across her chest.

“What is this thing you have with love, dear Sister?”

“To fall in love, I think,” she pauses, “You must only love one person. And I am certain that I will never love anyone as I love you.” Cesare’s heart beats quickly at her words, because, no matter how he would deny it, no matter how many times he hated himself for it, he feels it too. She is ingrained upon his heart and soul and that is why he won’t tell her what love is. He will not tell her because he will not allow her to marry, or to fall in love with anyone but himself.

“Do not worry, my love. You will meet the prince of your dreams and he will love you until the day he dies. And me, well, I’ll be long forgotten about by then.” She frowns, the anguished look of hurt written all over her angelic face. Cesare feels her pouting lips in his own body.

“I could never forget you. You are my brother.” A brother who loves his sister in a way that would damn them both straight to hell. “Don’t you love me, Cesare?”

“Little One,” he croons, letting his fingers trace over her face. “I love you more than anything in the entire world. You are, and have always been the light of my life.”

“My Cesare is a prince. Can I not marry you?” Cesare laughs and kisses the top of her head.

“I am a Prince of the Church. And brothers and sisters do not marry.” Lucrezia continues pouting, her lips angled in a frown, her cheeks pressed against her knees. He won’t press the matter any further, he can’t, he won’t. The more they talk and think about it, the deeper Cesare falls in love with perfect, perfect, innocent Lucrezia.

***

It is not surprising when his father informs him Lucrezia is to be married, but it still shocks Cesare to his core. She is just a little girl, his tiny little one. “And who is she to be married to?”

“Giovanni Sforza,” Rodrigo answers. “We need his family’s allegiance.”

“He is more than twice her age,” Cesare says, fists clenching beside him. “How could you?”

“You dare to disrespect me?”

“She is but a child. And you are her father. Do you care nothing of what she may want?” Cesare’s jaw hardens, his teeth grinding so hard it gives him a headache.

His father, the Holy Father, fumes. “You will not question my decision again. You are well aware of what is required to keep the papacy safe, to keep us safe. It is for the same reason Lucrezia must be married just as you are now a Cardinal and Juan will lead our armies.”

Cesare is dismissed before he can say anything else, his knuckles cracking against hips. He wonders where his father’s selfishness comes from. But then he thinks of what and how far he would go to protect his baby sister. And then he understands. But it doesn’t make it any easier.

***

He was serious when he told Lucrezia he would cut her husband’s heart out and serve it to her upon a dinner plate if he proved ungallant. Cesare’s vision was as red as his robes when he married her to that thing, that brute. He hated to think of them together; his little one with someone else. God, he could only imagine, his oafish hands bruising her body, her body that should be treated only with the most delicate touches. He held his throat closed in case not to vomit.

Cesare’s distraction came in the form of a beautiful woman, though not nearly as beautiful as his sister. And she married, of course. But Cesare is his father’s son, and that fact mattered not. Three weeks passed and he distracted himself with her, her body, that beautiful blonde hair and light eyes. It reminded him of someone else. He kills the woman’s husband, as he had promised he would. Cesare Borgia would do anything to defend his family’s honor, and no one would ever get in the way of that. When she joins a nunnery, Cesare is left alone. He cannot chase his dear sister, but he can chase Ursula. Until he can find an excuse to bring Lucrezia home.

“Did she break your heart, brother?” Lucrezia asks, leaning her head onto his shoulder as they sit in their beautiful garden.

“She did,” Cesare responds solemnly. “She did.”

Lucrezia looks up to her brother, her clear blue eyes searching across his face. “I would never break your heart.”

“I know.” He says, kissing her forehead and pulling her closer. When she goes back to her husband, his heart does break. It breaks hers too. Every time she leaves him it is harder and harder; if it were up to her, she’d never leave. Lucrezia would take her brother and run off to some small hamlet in Italy. She had heard those tiny islands near the city of Venice or past Naples were isolated and small.

They could go there. Or somewhere East, Constantinople perhaps. Somewhere far where no one would know them, or even care to know them. But Lucrezia knows Cesare would never dare to disappoint their father. So she returns, with the ghost of a kiss upon the corner of her mouth, to her husband in Pesaro.

***

When his darling Lucrezia returns to him, she is not the same. Her eyes no longer sparkle; the giggle he loves so much no longer leaves those perfect lips. She’s avoided speaking him to about it all day and now, long after everyone is asleep, Lucrezia cannot run from him anymore. “Tell me, Sister, what has he done to you?”

“Cesare, there are some things that should not be discussed.”

“You must tell me, Lucrezia.” Cesare grabs his Lucrezia by the arms, turning her to face him.

The look of pain that flits across her face is unmistakable. “What did he do to you?” Lucrezia’s eyes well up as she slips her arm from her robe, letting Cesare raise her sleeve to her shoulder. The bruises and red marks that mar her perfect skin are horrible, large, yellow, purple and green. A terrible hue that makes her brother sick and his head spin.

“He was repulsive. He-he-“ Lucrezia is unable to finish her sentence and shakes her head. “It’s over now. I prefer not to think about it.” For the first time in a very long time, Cesare doesn’t know what to say. He is silenced by his rage, his outrage that that Sforza could do this to his little sister. He gently guides her to sit back on her bed, her tears she’s trying to stop now streaming down her face. Cesare’s heart hurts more than he every thought it could.

“Do not cry, my love. I,” he swallows hard. “I will fix this.”

“I cannot go back.”

“No, I will not let you.” Lucrezia smiles as Cesare’s lips coast on her skin, gently, ever so gently giving the lightest kisses he can to ease the pain of the bruised skin and her fears. Finally, after all these months, Lucrezia feels safe. Not even with Paolo, her refuge away from her horrorshow of a husband could make her feel this safe. No, this is a feeling only Cesare can give her. Cesare scoots her up on the bed, pulling back the covers to let her climb under. He leans over her bed once she is tucked in, his forehead buried into the crook of her neck while his hand cradles her cheek.

“Cesare,” Lucrezia says, her own hands running through the brown curls she loves so much.

“Yes, my love?”

“Please stay. I have been without you for far too long.”

“Of course,” Cesare smiles. “I’ll sit right there until you fall asleep.” He looks at the chair in the corner of her room and Lucrezia’s eyes widen.

“No, no. Please, sleep in my bed with me. Like when we were young.”

“We are no longer young, my love. It is not appropriate.”

“Please,” she asks again. “I need you. You are my brother.” She adds the second part more for herself, to remind her who they were. Why? Why, why, she asks herself, why did they have to be the Pope’s children? Couldn’t her father have stayed satisfied with his vineyards in Valencia? Couldn’t they be the nobodies they were before her father gained the power and prestige he always wanted? It would have been too easy to change their names – to live out in a place where it would be just the two of them. “I need you,” She says again, this time more urgently. “Stay.” Cesare has never told her no before, and this time wasn’t going to be any different.

“I’ll be right back.” He kisses her forehead and strokes her hair before he walks to her doorway, peeking his head out and letting the servants know Lucrezia was feeling ill and should not be disturbed. Cesare was right back to her side in an instant, as he said he would. Lucrezia smiles gently as she settles on her pillow, pulling her duvet up to her chin. Cesare kicks his boots off and untucks his tunic before he crawls into bed beside his sister. Their bodies immediately search for the other, just like they always have. Cesare lies on his back and pulls Lucrezia to his side; her beautiful blonde curls splaying across his tanned shoulder.

“Brother, I need to tell you something.”

“Anything, sis.”

“I am with child.” Cesare swears his heart stops beating for a minute straight. When he regains some of his senses, he cups her cheek with his hand, turning her face so he can look her in the eye.

“With Sforza?” He spits. “His child?”

“No, no, thank God, by the Grace of God, it is not his child.” Cesare breathes a little easier. But his silence fills the room.

“Please don’t be mad at me, Cesare. I couldn’t bare it.” “I am not mad, my love,” Cesare smiles, kissing Lucrezia’s forehead. “I could never be mad at you. But who is the father?”

“He was a groom, a stablehand.” Cesare is disappointed, but he can’t blame his sister. He only wish he had known sooner just how terrible Sforza was. He could’ve stopped it. He could’ve done something. “And I am elated for it not to be Sforza’s.” Lucrezia’s barely open eyes gaze at her brother.

“Do you still love me?” Cesare pulls her closer, lessening his grip as she winces. “I love you more than anyone in the world has ever loved anyone. I would go to the ends of the earth for you.” He tweaks her nose and she giggles. “Do not worry any more tonight, my love. Now you need to sleep.”

Lucrezia falls asleep quickly, but Cesare stays awake for hours. He watches her sister sleep, struck by her innocent and beautiful alabaster features. How could anyone dare to hurt her? How could anyone even think of it? The thought alone made his blood boil. There will be an annulment, he would make sure of it. Cesare would give his father no choice. Firstly, though, Lucrezia needed a safe place to stay. And the only person in the world he would trust with his sister was the woman who had broke his heart. Ursula. She would keep her safe, if not out of love for Cesare, then out of fear, surely. He couldn’t bring himself to care. His only care in the world was back in Rome, and he would do anything to make sure she was happy and above all, safe.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's the second chapter! there will be one more chapter and it's going to be explicit. thanks everyone for the encouragement! as i said, i wrote this over a year ago, and some of it i brushed up on today, but haven't watched the show in quite a while. 
> 
> there are a few differences but everything should line up, though! enjoy and let me know what you think! x

***

 Juan bids his time, plotting against Cesare, growing more and more frustrated at his inadequacy. He’s has always been the second son, the one that’s always in the shadow of his big brother, _Cesare._ The name tastes acrid against his tongue. He can only say it with the sneer. “Besides, black was _never_ your color. _Red_ suits you much better, brother,” Juan smirks, tossing the dull practice sword at Cesare’s feet. “Those robes in your way, then?”

 Cesare leaves the air of someone born to kill. Juan takes a swig of the wine from his goblet; he’ll show his brother what it means to be put down. To be second. To be less loved.

 The two brothers have never really got along, and the gap between them grew once Lucrezia was born. She was immediately Cesare’s, and unintentionally or not, the two of them isolated Juan. After five years of trying to gain Cesare’s approval – Juan gives up. Instead, he’ll hurt him someway or another. He _will_ be the favorite son.

  _How hard it is to be a Borgia._

 ***

Lucrezia is heavily pregnant when her annulment hearing occurs. They hide her in a heavy black dress, placing her a carefully crafted sort-of cage. No one, not one cardinal can see her ever-expanding belly. Cesare cannot wait for the moment for Giovanni Sforza to be humiliated in front of the whole of Rome, though he deserves a much worse fate than that. One day he’ll give it to him. A Spanish garrote against his neck, flayed alive in the basement of the Vatican, tongue cut off and served to dogs. There are a lot of things Cesare thinks about – and none of them have anything to do with being a cardinal. He’s brought out of his thoughts when Lucrezia gives a small chuckle from behind her screen.

Cesare makes eye contact with his sister as she tells her side of the story, giving her an encouraging smile. She is no longer a child, but a grown woman that he has never loved so dearly. And the baby that grows in her womb will be treated as his, for the infant is a piece of Lucrezia. Be damned, let the whole of Italy say it _is_ his, let them say the Pope’s children conceived a child together, for deep down, he knows he would in a heartbeat.

After the hearing is completed, Lucrezia takes her stay back at the convent. Cesare visits often, gently touching her belly over her dresses as it grows. He is amazed at the transformation. He may be losing his faith in God more and more everyday, but he can see the magic that something from above has granted his sister. “She does well,” Ursula says, “Eats well, reads, rests. The baby will be the healthiest ever born.”

 “Good,” Cesare replies, “See to it.”

***

 As everyone in the Borgia family becomes more excited about the birth of the new baby, Juan becomes more and more angry. The baby is obviously not her husband’s. He can’t understand why no one else cares. Don’t they know they must protect the Borgia name at all costs? If he had done the same, the consequences would be dire. Though he’d probably be the reason why. Juan Borgia could never bring a bastard child into the world.

  _Cesare,_ he thinks, after a pitcher of wine. Cesare hasn’t let anyone see Lucrezia is ages. Why? Juan’s especially angry that Cesare is so fucking protective of their sister. Just like always, he would be at her beck and call. She could do anything in the entire world and Cesare would never blame her. Juan takes a tone Cesare doesn’t like and all hell breaks loose. Why wouldn’t his sister get the same treatment? Even as the papal armies the title _Gonfaloniere_ behind him, Juan can’t hold up against Cesare. Or Lucrezia. He never will. Just like he’ll never hold up to that _bastard_ child growing in his sister’s belly.

 Juan takes the last gulp of his wine, turning around and facing Cesare, who lounges in a chair. “So tell me, dear brother,” Juan sneers. “Who is the father of our beloved sister’s bastard child?”

“No one,” Cesare responds, clenching his fists.

 “Hmm, an immaculate conception?”

 “So it would seem.” Cesare stands, trying to gain some of his senses back as the blood burns his ears from anger.

 “Ah, but you see, our savior was born from a sweet virgin. I doubt the Lord would bless our whore sister with such a gift.”

 Cesare grabs Juan by his collar pushing him up against the fireplace, wishing the heat would burn through his legs. “Do not ever say that again. How dare you speak of Lucrezia like that?”

“So defensive,” Juan replies, trying uselessly to force Cesare off him. His heels dance uncomfortably close to the coals of the fire, Cesare’s hands closing in on Juan’s neck. “Why, brother? Have you known our sweet sister and that child is yours?”

Cesare slams him against he mantelpiece, Juan grunting at the force. “What _does_ Father see in you? You are vile.”

Juan gains his footing and forces Cesare back against their dinner table, his fingers inching ever closer to his brother’s neck. "You want to inhabit my shoes, wear my armor, carry my sword. But what you don't realize is: I am the prodigal son; our father is never wrong. I am the light of his life.”

Rodrigo’s roar from behind the two brothers wills them apart, both men’s jaw still clenched and teeth bared like an animal’s. “What are you doing?” Their holy father yells, pushing them away from each other.

“Ask your eldest,” Juan replies, his breath heavy with anger and wine. “I believe he has something to confess.”

Rodrigo raises his eyebrows, turning to Cesare as he waits for him to speak. “Well, Cesare? What’s Juan talking about?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Cesare responses, his voice flat and monotone.

“I believe,” Juan says, looking straight at their father, “that my dear brother has known our sister far too well.” Cesare scoffs in response. “You see, that bastard child must be his.”

Rodrigo slaps Juan hard across the face, sending him flying back a few good feet across the room. The crack from skin on skin echoes around the three men, Rodrigo still fuming. “How could you? How could you make such accusations against your own brother, not to mention your sister? Have you gone absolutely mad?”

Juan spits blood across the majestic marble floors – eyes narrowing on his brother and his father. “You mean to tell me you don’t see what everyone sees – don’t you know what they say throughout the _whole of Italy_? That the Holy Father’s children play with each other – The Unholy Family, that the Pope will be a grandfather to a child born of incest.”

Rodrigo won’t listen to another word, wringing his hands together and breathing hard through his nose. “Juan, I would have thought you’d ignore such vile rumors. You are above this. Get out of my sight.”

Juan leaves without another word, a bruise of the Papal ring stinging his cheek and eyes aflame with anger. He will prove what he _knows._

“Father-” Cesare interjects, desperately trying to ease the situation before it can escalate any further.

“You,” Rodrigo says, almost looking as if he’ll hit Cesare too. “Make sure your sister hears none of this. Now leave.”

***

Giovanni comes into the world as beautiful and healthy as Urusla predicted. He’s fair skinned, brushed with blonde hair and blue eyes. Everyone comments on his good weight – an angel indeed. Rodrigo holds his grandson with as much as love he gave his children, if not more. There will never be a more loved baby in all of the Papal States.

Lucrezia is moved home to her apartments at the Vatican, Giovanni given a small room separate off her chambers. Cesare could not be happier to have his heart back with him, just a few doors away from where he sleeps.

 Lucrezia is asleep when he enters her room, Giovanni in his cradle at the foot of her bed. Cesare watches his nephew for a few minutes, taking in everything that’s beautiful about him. In his heart, he wishes that little Giovanni was his, with dark curls and light eyes like Lucrezia. But he’ll never father children, never marry. Not unless he could get Juan out of the way, and with the way his brother was acting, that wouldn’t be so hard…

Cesare traces the baby’s tiny nose and lips, hands itching to pick him up and cradle him against his chest. He’s startled when a pair of delicate arms wrap around his middle. “Be careful, brother, you’ll wake him.”

He rests his hands across Lucrezia’s, a smile on his face as she kisses the leather between his shoulder blades. “Would that be so terrible?”

“He kept me up half the night, so indeed it would be.”

“You have nurses for that, sis,” Cesare whispers, quietly turning around and ushering them out of the room.

“He is my son, I will take care of him.”

“A mother needs sleep, too.”

“And nephews need godfathers.” Lucrezia smiles so brightly Cesare thinks she just might be the sun in the sky. “Don’t you think?”

“And who would you choose?”

“You, of course.” She hugs him again, letting her head rest on his chest. His senses are filled with the scent of her hair; vanilla, lavender, something darker he can’t quite place. Cesare is overwhelmed at the thought – the godfather of her child? Her Giovanni?

“I am a terrible choice.”

“My only choice.”

He kisses the top of her beautiful blonde head, “Then I shall be honored.”

Neither of them notice the slamming of the door behind them; Juan rushing down the stone steps of the castle, hell-bent on shaming his brother, but most of all, his whore of a sister.


End file.
